How the Path-to-Purchase Funnel Became Obsolete

A look at how m-commerce is having an impact on marketing strategies for brands.

By 4Info.

It is rare that a major change in the marketplace forces a paradigm shift for marketers. But it happens. And, it is happening right now. It is revolutionizing the traditional path-to-purchase model we have used since the 1800s. Elias St. Elmo Lewis’s model has been tweaked over the decades, of course, but the dynamic changes wrought by mobile devices and the way consumers use them has recently forced the path-to-purchase marketing funnel into obsolescence.

Since the age of marketing pioneer John Wanamaker, most of us were trained to follow the model of awareness-interest-desire-action (AIDA) designed to help businesses influence the minds of consumers. Purchase-funnel and shopper marketing concepts were later incorporated within AIDA, leading more recently to the additional stages after a purchase: adoption, loyalty, and advocacy. This linear approach to understanding the consumer worked … until it didn’t; until the age of the connected consumer; until the introduction of the Internet and, even more so, mobile devices and social media.